Shelagh's Website

Re-enactment Societies

I am involved with several UK dark-age re-enactment societies, each of which excels in its own special way.

The Dark Ages Society
is small, friendly and involves a great deal of fighting in small groups, feasting on wild boar,
mead and so on, and quite a lot of genuine research into the history, crafts and way of life
in Britain in the late 9th Century AD. Everyone in DAS develops a Viking or Anglo-Saxon persona:
I am known as Ingibjorg and am a member of the
Hólmbyggja.

Wychwood Warriors is the
Oxford University Dark-Age Re-enactment Society, founded for and run by students to study
and re-enact Anglo-Saxon culture. They sing all night and they never sleep, and the axe-pulling
has to be seen to be believed.

The Vikings is a large
national society which performs public displays of combat and living history, covering the
entire period of the Dark Ages up until the Norman Conquest.

In 2005 I organised and participated in a display at the Woolwich Arsenal, London, to
celebrate the voyage of the Norwegian longship 'Gaia'.